"Shutter," yet another installment of the "Asian Invasion" genre of Hollywood-ized horror thrillers, is a caricature of itself in more ways than one.
Not only does it recycle the tired scare tactics of every other ghouly-flick in memory (do the characters in these movies have any other way to open a creaking door besides veeeerrrry sloooooowly?), but it's also smeared with so much iconography from previous Asian remakes that the freshness once attached to a film like "The Ring" now stinks like a parched corpse taking up space on the marquee.
Though set in bustling Tokyo and featuring several Japanese craftsmen and actors, "Shutter" was originally a Thai film and quite the blockbuster from what I hear. In this Americanized version, professional Brooklyn photographer Ben Shaw (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife, Jane (Rachael Taylor) arrive in Tokyo for a quasi-honeymoon built around a job offer for Ben, camera at the ready.
Before I proceed to the plot, I must bring to light one of the most unrealistic things I've seen in a film in a long time, which shows just how little care was put into this product: still in New York and just returned from their wedding, the couple fools around on the couch, knocking over a stack of disposable cameras on a table, one of which Ben later uses to capture the moment. I don't know what kind of picture-taker Ben is, but I highly doubt a professional photographer with a job offer in Japan would snap post-wedding pics with Kmart disposables. Just a hunch.
Once in Japan, the trouble starts when Jane, driving down a dark, foggy highway, strikes a woman with her car. Even if you haven't seen this movie, you know what this woman looks like - she is every other ghost from every other Asian thriller remake: pale complexion, wet, black, stringy hair and a white gown. But there's no body or blood on the road. Jane knows she hit a person, but her drowsy-eyed hubbie, who I suppose was too tired to notice the collision with a human being while going 50, tries to convince her otherwise: "It was probably an animal," he says. In movies like this, it's never an animal.
From here unfurls your standard ghost story. Ben and Jane are thrilled with their new high-rise flat above Tokyo. They snap some pictures that, when developed, display mysterious white wisps that couldn't possibly be sun flares. While Ben romps around with American business friends Bruno and Adam (David Denman and John Hensley respectively), Jane does some investigating, learning of supernatural phenomenon called "spirit photos," or instances of strong, paranormal emotions making themselves seen on film. Could this roadkill-woman be haunting Jane and Ben's pictures, waiting for the time to strike?
The sad thing about "Shutter" is that it remains the second-scariest film featuring Americans wandering around Tokyo in recent years. The first is "Lost in Translation," starring Bill Murray. That's not good, but it's the product director Masayuki Ochiai has developed. During supposed tense moments in which the spirit is threateningly close, high violin strings and explosive, booming percussion only go so far in crafting genuine terror, and Ochiai doesn't know where to put his camera in the mean time.
It doesn't take long for "Shutter" to run out of narrative steam, succumbing to the requisite plot twists we've come to expect from these movies. Through all of it, Jackson remains amazingly one-note - his smiley, everything-is-OK demeanor making us dislike him even before we learn of his checkered past. Taylor does well with what she's given, but she's plagued by scenes and dialogue that go nowhere and actions that only serve the film's implausible design. By the third attempted "boo," I was actually mouthing "booooooo."
Another day, another poor Hollywood remake. At only 87 minutes, the movie still feels bloated, as if in trying to rush out another quick 'n' tidy, PG-13, teenage demographic money-maker, they actually induced more prolonged suffering on the audience.
The scariest thing about this film, which wasn't even screened for critics, is that I actually sought it out and shelled out money to see it. Now that makes me shudder.
Bill Fech is a senior English and film studies major. Reach him at billfech@dailynebraskan.com.
